Every technology shift creates winners and losers.

There’s already documented harm from algorithms making callous biased decisions that ruin people’s lives - an example is automated insurance claim rejections.

We know that AI is going to bring algorithmic decisions into many new places where it can do harm. AI adoption is currently on track to get to those places well before the most important harm reduction solutions are mature.

We should take care that we do not gaslight people who will be harmed by this trend, by telling them they are better off.

Thanks for that mental image… Dancing Bear.

People spend more on Apple/Nintendo because of quality.

Perhaps we had very different experiences with the JoyCon…

Joking aside, I agree. I used to buy Nintendo for that reason. Then came JoyCon drift and out of control Nintendo lawyers.

Amazon - the logistics company - is just a front end for (and leech on) various drop shippers, lately, anyway.

Amazon used to carry quality guarantees, and have meaningful reviews, but lately the wild West crapshoot of the rest of the web is just as good.

(And at least on the rest of the web I have some idea who I’m buying from, and can avoid them after a bad experience. On Amazon, it got to where there was no way I could tell.)

Thank you. My big question from this list was “WTF is a Shenmue?”

Controlling people’s media experience to push political propaganda that helps powerful people and harms individuals - that seems really shitty.

I can’t think of any app developer or political party who would do that.

(This is an attempt at surrealist humor.)

I’m sure they will grow out of it, by the time they turn 21

(This is intended as an amusing reference to DOGE’s habit of hiring surprisingly young professionals.)

“$450 is an insanely high price for a new console, so I’m going to buy a $400 2 year old console instead.”

Sure. But it’s also a choice between a library that will forever cost $70 00-$90.00 per game, and a game library infamous for game sales so good that an average player cannot finish their library because the seasonal sales are too good to pass up.

Oh, that makes sense. Local multiplayer on SteamDeck can still be pretty rubbish, so I probably just didn’t notice.

Most KDE apps will run on Gnome and vice-versa, but they might not run particularly well under those conditions.

I used to run into issues with this all the time. Recently, I find, for poplar apps, there’s always a version built for my chosen desktop environment.

Of course, I’m not very picky, anymore: Libre-this, Open-that, Free-Whatever. I usually find the one that comes up in the app search is good enough for what I’m doing.

I feel like linux demands an understanding of the relationship between hardware and software more than windows does.

Yes, when we install Linux on something that didn’t ship with Linux installed.

But in an apples to apples scenario - pre-installed OS provided by the manufacturer, it’s Windows that comes with more bullshit.

And there are (finally!) plenty of options to buy a pre-installed Linux computer, today.

It’s a tiny fraction as many as pre-installed Windows or Mac, of course. But it’s still plenty. There’s a half dozen companies with solid reputations and hardware specialties, and I only need one.

I will warn that some of the Lego games are rather buggy on PC.

I had the same issues on my Windows PC. But they run great on my SteamDeck.

I would never scribble my password on a whiteboard. It’s important to write in large clear letters so I can read it from across the lab.

I haven’t especially heard the Linux or Rust stereotype, but it’s fair enough for a funny joke.

Stallman is one of the world’s most prolific C developers, so that part of the joke may be just making fun of his (likely) reluctance to adopt Rust, which is often recommended to C programmers.

Plan to share a link so the hackers can check your work?

I’ve heard good things about vibe coding primary use cases for common problems.

I have experience vibe coding unusual use cases. The AI was worse than useless for those.

So I’m curious how the corner cases and security stuff on common problems turn out. (I always get that kind of thing from a framework, so I have no experience vibe coding those cases.)

(Genuinely curious. And obviously, no worries if you don’t want to risk sharing.)

I would welcome a utility that makes it easy to find donate links for my software packages, based on my Apt, Flatpak, and F-Droid package lists.

I had not heard of Trinity Desktop. That does look like a much simpler path to beautiful Windows XP stylings.

Apparently, many people want to make Linux look like Windows 95?

I’m a developer, so my chances are pretty good. But I take your point.

Even if I weren’t, there’s enough software options out there that I don’t have to pick between paying for proprietary software and living with abandonware.

So I think the need for this security is exaggerated.

Of course. I used proprietary software for a long time. Having things I relied on get abandoned got old, but it worked.

I just expect more from most of my software, now.

I’m happy to pay for software, but I want more than just permission, I want long term security that my investment in the tool will last.

If IntelliJ would open source their oldest versions, I would make my boss buy me a copy of the newest version every year.